Forget Popcorn: Independent Video Rental Stores Offer Tanning Beds to Keep Customers Returning THR
Popcorn is so passe with independent video-rental stores. According to a story in the Hollywood Reporter, more than 3,500 independently owned stores, or 35% of total independent outlets, have added a tanning bed to keep customers returning -- and to add profits.
The tanning beds apparently attract customers during those slow periods for video-rentals, helping to provide the independently-owned stores round out their revenue streams, the story says.
Steve Pickard in St. Cloud, Minn., who owns two stores in the town, said having tanning beds -- he has 10 in one store and seven in another -- is allowing him to keep renting videos. "I don't think we could pay all our overhead with just video," he says. A good quality tanning bed can cost as much as $15,000, the story notes.
This story reminds TVWeek that in the early 1990s a popular place to rent videos on the upper West Side of New York City was a store that was a combination laundromat/video rental shop.
http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/tvbizwire/2010/09/forget-popcorn-independent-vid.php
